Curse

Spookii · Oct 26, 2010, 03:10 PM // 15:10

I really don't understand the point of Embark Beach.

From what I'm getting...

It's an outpost with quick-travel to other missions that will serve as a central hub for group searching.

Wait what?

We already have quick-travel (generous quick-travel). And what's wrong with just standing in the outpost that your quest/mission is at and looking for a group there? Is anyone else afraid that this is going to make GW even more of a desolate game than it already is? I'd hate to run around the *world* and not see anyone in the outposts. :[

You want a group for Battle for Lion's Arch? Stand in Lion's Arch and spam LFG. Finding groups for WiK wasn't hard because people couldn't find each other, it was hard because no one wanted to do the easy parts in a group. I could (and still can, for that matter) easily find a group for BLA by standing in LA.

You want a group for Hell's Precipice? Stand in Hell's Precipice where all of the other people who want to do Hell's Precipice will be.

Besides, if it actually works, it'll just be another lag-central that's confusing. Instead of only seeing LFG ads for your quest/mission, you're going to have to mentally filter through all the other LFG ads for every other quest/mission in the game as well.

Did I get the idea completely wrong? o_O

jazilla · Oct 26, 2010, 03:16 PM // 15:16

I think they should have NO trade chat in this outpost. But that is for another part of these forums

To your topic: you didn't get it wrong but I think it really is for when GW2 comes out and people are still playing GW1 or working on achievements for their HoM. This way if you are looking to do one thing and can't find anyone, you can still get in a group for something you may still need but weren't thinking of doing or vice versa. It's the same thing for 7 hero parties. 7 heroes is awesome for those missions that players don't like to do, but mainly they will be for when gw2 is out and you are still working on HoM stuff.

I think it will be really nice to have one outpost that you can access all of the content for. This will be great when you see 6/8 for Thunderhead Keep/Altrumm Ruins etc. You may not have thought about going to those dreaded missions but now that you see a group formed, you can decide to get it out of the way if need be.

Spookii · Oct 26, 2010, 03:29 PM // 15:29

That makes sense.

I'm just not happy about seeing a central teleport outpost.

They always take away that "big" feeling in a MMO.

Aljasha · Oct 26, 2010, 03:55 PM // 15:55

Nobody except ANet knows how the Embark Beach works.
I understand your concern about a central meeting place, but GW's population has been stagnant for about 2 years and spread across three continents and a lot of outposts. For all puggers this is a major concern, so concentrating all players into one city is a good idea. After all party search doesn't work with more than one city.

Kook~NBK~ · Oct 26, 2010, 03:58 PM // 15:58

I can see it as nice tool for forming Vanquishing parties, but for Missions, not so much.

I'm wondering how it'll work when one of the party members doesn't have access to the outpost/town that the party is trying to travel to. Will everyone except that person travel, or will the party simply not be able to travel? Hopefully, a message will pop up that says "Player X does not have access to (insert town name here)."

Eisha · Oct 26, 2010, 03:59 PM // 15:59

I think this will help questers because like, when you have a random non-primary quest that isn't somehow over farmed orso, how often do you find a pug? like, maguuma quests etc, I have never found anyone, so this will connect the "newbies", as they mostly do those quests, and actually play together XD , will help them alot , and also it will be fun with a new outposts, and it keeps ppl playing till gw2 is released, that is the mainpoint.

Boring and Pointless · Oct 26, 2010, 04:01 PM // 16:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spookii

They always take away that "big" feeling in a MMO.

Lucky us then, since GW isn't a MMO.

BrettM · Oct 26, 2010, 04:03 PM // 16:03

I think Embark Beach will be an advantage to larger parties headed for Prophecies or NF missions. They can now go to their destination through Embark Beach instead of having the party broken when forced to go through LA or Kamadan.

jray14 · Oct 26, 2010, 04:03 PM // 16:03

Hopefully they'll be smart about it and implement some sort of system whereby a group forming for mission X spawns a party search entry in the outpost for mission X. In place of the district number, it could say "Embark Beach." Or they could enhance the party search window to show entries across the whole world. I would have preferred that over a separate outpost, because I think this new outpost is just gonna become Spamadan II, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Iuris · Oct 26, 2010, 04:05 PM // 16:05

I got the feeling that Embark beach would offer direct mission access - IE, you can group there and enter the mission directly. But, that's just my impression.

I hope they remember to put the Zaishen mission quest giver there, too

Cuilan · Oct 26, 2010, 04:08 PM // 16:08

I was wondering the same thing. People may not use it if they don't find a use for it. They announced this with the heroes thing, so they likely know that there are people who prefer human players. I know I hardly do or cast anything myself when heroes and henchman unless I have to.

shoesbags · Oct 26, 2010, 04:14 PM // 16:14

I understand your concerns but I think the fact we even have fast travel takes away that "big" feeling of Guild Wars. It really is a large world the first time you play through it on a new character, but once you unlock all the outposts, it doesn't feel nearly the size it truly is since you're just one click away from where you want to be.

I think Embark Beach is a nice idea. I understand it may make some outposts desolate, to be fair a lot of them already are, but it'll pit together the players who want to PUG quests and missions in one central area. I do think a global LFG system rather than a central outpost would be more appropriate so the world wouldn't feel so empty, but it is what it is.

Spookii · Oct 26, 2010, 04:15 PM // 16:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boring and Pointless

Lucky us then, since GW isn't a MMO.

Sorry, this may be a tangent but I really think it's silly when people try to pull this card.

Guild Wars *is* a MMO as far as what we're talking about goes. Just because they call it a CORPG or whatever, doesn't mean that it's not a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG as well.

"Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a genre of computer role-playing games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world."

Guild Wars is both, imo.

"A competitive online role-playing game (CORPG) is a type of multiplayer video game. It shares a number of similar features with massively multiplayer online role-playing games, while having significant differences such as a focus on competitive play. An example of a CORPG is Guild Wars."

~50% (if that) of the game is competitive play. The other 50% is completely MMO-like and many people don't partake in any sort of PvP. That's pretty much the only significant difference, actually.

Not to mention Guild Wars has won numerous MMO awards.

Be as technical and nitpicky as you want, it's still practically the same thing in the situation that we're discussing.

Anywho, back on topic for me.

I still don't really see the need for the travel. I think that's my biggest beef with it. We already have an awesome map-travel system. The only thing I could see that's useful is like someone else said, larger parties could travel easier across other continents. I just feel like there's more bad in this than good. :[ But we'll see how it plays out.

Rushin Roulette · Oct 26, 2010, 04:31 PM // 16:31

Apart from that I think its a fix for what players have complained about since NF was released.

No more mapping from Kaineng with 8 players to Kamadan with 4 players, then to the Mouth of Torment with 8 players again and from there to Gate of Pain for example.

You map from Embark beach straight to the Gate of pain with a full 8 man party and no need to reorganize or split and meet any more.

Another reason is for players who are spread high and wide anways over 4 games to have a central meeting point again. If you go to EB and you see someoen wanting to get a HM Missino + bonus for the Wilds you can join up even though you were thinking of doing something else solo (taking in mind not many players like doing most Prophs missions and are happy to get help and company for them as they are damn long).

go cubs · Oct 26, 2010, 04:32 PM // 16:32

I agree with you completely then :0, I think its a great idea to implement this, but not until GW2 comes out.

I think it will make every other outpost basically deserted which will make this game feel more dead than it already is.
If they do this, it will make all the traders be in Kamadan/LA and all the Mission/vanqers in embark beach.

It will be a great idea once GW2 comes out because then you can actually find other people willing to do stuff, but for now, i think guildwars still has enough people to actually go to the mission/outpost and look there.

Then again, it will be nice to see what everyone is doing at once so you can get the odds and ends that you need to finish out of the way.

Spookii · Oct 26, 2010, 04:35 PM // 16:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by go cubs

I agree with you mostly, I think its a great idea to implement this, but not until GW2 comes out.

I think it will make every other outpost basically deserted which will make this game feel more dead than it already is.
If they do this, it will make all the traders be in Kamadan/LA and all the Mission/vanqers in embark beach.

It will be a great idea once GW2 comes out because then you can actually find other people willing to do stuff, but for now, i think guildwars still has enough people to actually go to the mission/outpost and look there.

Then again, it will be nice to see what everyone is doing at once so you can get the odds and ends that you need to finish out of the way.

Exactly what I think. :/

Horace Slughorn · Oct 26, 2010, 04:43 PM // 16:43

Ya I was a little confused about the need for Embark Beach as well.

I mean, theoretically if I wanted to find a group for a mission today, then I would go to that mission outpost and LFG.

If embark beach were added, then what makes me so sure that I would find more people in embark beach looking to do the exact same mission as I was. I mean, it's just moving all the people who normally would have been in the mission outpost over to another town.

Wouldn't it be even harder to find a group, because there would be so many different groups forming in embark beach that I would have to wade through a giant party search screen?

Also, this won't save me any map travel time. As it stands now, I load the game in my guild hall. Then I zone once to a port town, then again to the mission or outpost I want. With embark beach, i'd still have to zone twice, from my gh to embark, then from embark to the town.

In short, meh.

RedStar · Oct 26, 2010, 04:50 PM // 16:50

Well let me put a little scenario :

Imagine someone is looking wants to do Imperial Sactum, ThK and also DoA (yes you need a lot of imagination xD). Since he can't be everywhere he is going to chose one of these outposts. But what if the one he chose is the one empty ? what if in the other two people are looking for someone that he can play ?

You can repeat this scenario with pretty much everything you want (speed clears, missions, quests, vanquish).

Hopefully there won't be any possible trades (they could remove the "trade" icon next to a character name).

And the "outposts being empty" well...sorry but most of them already are. And a lot of them didn't need a lot of time to become empty (just look at all the outposts in the jungle. Except for a few events, Henge of Denravi is almost empty).

Xiaquin · Oct 26, 2010, 05:05 PM // 17:05

Trade spam is my biggest concern. As far as grouping in general, there is a lot of content out there that just flat-out does not get parties. Sure, things like BFLA and notorious missions will have people out there looking, but that's only because they know their chances are pretty decent. Go out into the mid-range expanses of campaigns and see how easy it is to get a group for the rest of the game, it's almost non-existent, especially for vanquishes.

I'm also concerned for new players and hope they find a place in this new outpost to get some help. It's really sad to see a loner in party search just give up because no one is joining. Everyone likes to see people in outposts, but how many are jumping into groups? Most seem to idle when in an outpost, I believe that will not change.

IlikeGW · Oct 26, 2010, 05:06 PM // 17:06

Because in most current outposts that don't have anything special about them, you could be stuck for hours looking for a group if you wanted to go with people. It only makes sense to help people hook up and play.